Nuclear Fears Abound

The Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review, disclosed recently in The Times, raised a fierce outcry in the international press. The nations targeted for possible preemptive nuclear strikes--Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya--were predictably outraged. But U.S. allies--from South Korea to tiny Papua New Guinea--were also concerned, warning that U.S. nuclear brinkmanship would put the world at risk. What follows is a sampling of opinion from foreign newspapers. (Compiled by Gale Holland)

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AUSTRALIA

What does [the Nuclear Posture Review] say to the rest of the international community? It says that nonproliferation of nuclear weapons is a mug’s game, and that we should all get our hands on the damnable things.

--Andy Butfoy, The Age

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CANADA

If any other country but the U.S. started talking about launching preemptive strikes on nonnuclear players, Bush would be furiously denouncing it as an “axis of evil,” a rogue state, or worse ....What reason do the countries on the Pentagon hit list for “preemptive” attack now have to show restraint? Either way, they are targets. And if the Americans, even with their devastating conventional arsenal, feel justified in dropping a “small” nuclear bomb down some Iraqi bunker, why should lesser players not want to incinerate their foes’ major cities?

--Unsigned editorial, Toronto Star

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CHINA

The new U.S. strategy is a “full-spectrum” strategy of military deterrence, oriented at all possible future foes as well as an excuse for the establishment of all-round military superiority ....Once the United States gets rid of the fear of nuclear reprisal from countries with a few nuclear weapons, the possible use of U.S. nuclear weapons in real combat will be further augmented.

--Zhu Qiangguo, China Daily

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ENGLAND

Will [Vice President Dick] Cheney [during his trip abroad] grasp the perception common outside the U.S. that never has a nation squandered sympathy and moral advantage so quickly and with such wantonness? And if he does, will he care? Does America mind becoming a global hate figure? What happens to the mentality of a country when it’s not loved, only feared? What patterns of aggressive defensiveness take root? These are the questions that trigger anxiety

--Madeline Bunting, The Guardian

The dangers of a nuclear war have never been greater. Because this is no longer a Cold War. It’s hotter than hell, and it’s only too real.

--Unsigned editorial, Daily Star

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FRANCE

It will be said, to reassure us--in vain--that the job of military planners ... is to foresee the worst eventualities and the means to respond to them.... Nevertheless, the revelation ... of a [Nuclear Posture Review] sends chills up the spine. It reveals a Bush administration that has drawn only military conclusions from Sept. 11....It uproots the principle of atomic nonproliferation. Why sign, or remain signatory to, a treaty which, in exchange for your absolute renunciation of nuclear arms, does not guarantee that they will not be used against you? In invoking the possibility of a first strike, it accepts as normal the idea of putting to use a weapon that was originally conceived as a deterrent. The Pentagon document is worthy of a state in the grip of panic; not of a world power conscious of its responsibilities. It is frightening.

--Unsigned editorial, Le Monde

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GERMANY

Diplomatic niceties have never been George W. Bush’s strong suit.... But what became known [last week] topped everything that came before it. In a 56-page secret report, Bush’s military developed sweeping plans for a future nuclear war ....The new plans ... are creating unease in the entire world.”

--Unsigned editorial, Der Spiegel

“For the non-atomic weapons states in NATO this development is especially explosive. At least six of them, including Germany, are obliged, in the framework of the alliance’s internal system “nuclear participation,” to make available missiles that could be armed with American nuclear weapons....The [German] government wants to avoid having “nuclear participation” even come up for discussion. But a debate is more urgent than ever.

--Roland Heine, Berliner Zeitung

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IRAN

Like King George III, who misjudged the Boston events and lost the American colonies, God-willing, President Bush will preside over the end of the U.S. as a world power, but not [before] he creates more catastrophes for other civilizations.

Nevertheless, the world is prepared to pay the price for peace without being cowed by American contingency plans for use of nuclear weapons. After all, the Americans manufactured the atom bomb to use, as they so criminally demonstrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and not for keeping weapons of mass destruction in a showcase as pieces of aesthetic art.

--S. Nawabzadeh, Kayhan International

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IRELAND

European nations--Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Russia--with long memories of the ultimate fate of overreaching empires are understandably uneasy. May God bless the coalition, said President Bush yesterday, in a strategic variation on God Bless America. May God bless and preserve us all is a reasonable prayer as the consequences of Sept. 11 take us ever more rapidly into a downward spiral of international violence.

--Unsigned editorial, Belfast News

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NEW ZEALAND

These days, when the going gets sticky, the fashionable smokescreen for the squirming politician or chief executive is to blame it on Sept. 11 .... In Washington, it was the excuse needed to draw up a nuclear hit list of unloved countries; in Tel Aviv, it gave the chance to tighten the noose around Palestine.

--Brian Rudman,

New Zealand Herald

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PAKISTAN

The leaked Pentagon Nuclear Posture Review’s ... most important, but generally overlooked, aspect is that it raises the nuclear threshold to a new level. It suggests that the U.S. should be prepared to use nuclear weapons in case an ally is attacked even with conventional weapons, as in the possible scenario of an Arab-Israeli conflict or an attack from North Korea on South Korea.

--Tahir Mirza, Dawn

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PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Here’s a chilling thought for the day: If the U.S. budget appropriations for defense and military expenditure currently before Congress are approved, Uncle Sam will shortly preside over a defense budget that is significantly bigger than the defense budgets of all other countries in the world combined. Perhaps the word “defense” should be redefined.

--Unsigned editorial, The National

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SOUTH KOREA

President Bush and his nuclear strategists must not brush aside the deeply perturbed voices of those who advise them to throw out highly dangerous ideas. Their “posture” is not only imprudent but also menacing in a manner least becoming their unchallenged status as the world’s only superpower--militarily and otherwise .... One reason we are painfully involved in the issue, of course, is because North Korea is one of America’s perceived targets of nuclear warfare. In spite of the North’s notorious unpredictability and diplomatic brinkmanship, this is no time for the United States to discourage the very faint signs of change from the poverty-ridden communist state. It would be much wiser to salvage old treaties signed by the North and the United States or South Korea, that address weapons of mass destruction and seek ways to get them to work better.

--Unsigned editorial, Korea Herald

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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The Pentagon wants to use nuclear weapons on a battlefield level, which creates far more opportunities to use the weapon of last resort. For example, they could have dropped a nuclear shell into the Tora Bora caves, and given the worst possible example to the two most recent nuclear states, Pakistan and India. Both these states would have drawn the lesson that tactical use of nuclear weapons was acceptable.

Nuclear weapons are too awful to contemplate as part of the normal armory of any nation because the destruction they offer is so total and all embracing. The Cold War is over, and the balance of terror is not required. Better understanding between nations is far more effective than aiming nuclear weapons at friends.

--Unsigned editorial, Gulf News